My name is Ryan Holiday. I'm a college drop out who considers himself very lucky to have worked as a researcher under Robert Greene (48 Laws of Power), an entertainment exec in Hollywood, a publicist and strategist for Tucker Max (I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell), Dov Charney, American Apparel and others--all since I dropped out of college at 19.

In it I reveal all the problems with the mainstream media, with social media and blogs and how marketers control and influence the news. I want to prove how this influences everything you see, hear, or watch online--so people can protect themselves and hopefully change the current vulnerable system. (I was also the guy who tricked the NYT, ABC News, MSNBC and Reuters in a stunt this week proving this vulnerability)

I love Reddit. I wrote this piece on AMA's for Forbes earlier this year and now I am taking my own advice. Ask me anything about dropping out, finding your own path, writing, book deals, media manipulation, marketing, whatever

*Hey everyone, I am boarding a flight and switching to airline mode in a minute. This was really cool and thank you for the opportunity, I'll follow up on any remaining questions when I land so just up vote what you'd like me to reply to. *

The standard rate for AA models is $50 an hr. I love how that's a criticism though. Sure some companies pay their models thousands or even millions of dollars. And then they turn around and may the garment workers who make the clothes 50 cents an hour. Which one bothers you more?

I understand this post was more or less to distract attention from the models' pay to worker compensation, but don't you think that $50 is a little low? It doesn't seem like much for such a large company to give a couple hundred instead.

No. We usually use real people instead of professional models (often times employees or friends of the company) so I think that $50 per hour for several hours is pretty fair for putting on clothes and posing, don't you?

If they are regularly employed (even better if it's by AA) and do not depend on the modeling money as their main income, then I retract my judgment. I had assumed they were real models who depend on a couple gigs a year for income. Thanks for the AMA

I'm a professional with a fairly good idea of what my cost/benefit ratio is. But I'm not very attractive. So I'd accept $50 to pose for a few photos IFF I was working after hours, and got to keep the clothes.

The part where you didn't really address whether AA models were underpaid, but instead spun the question around to talk about an unrelated issue that hits home with many "average-joe" types.

Since you brought the issue up, would you mind sharing what % of money goes to models from the sale price of 1 T-shirt vs industry average/competitors? Also the % of money that goes to manufacturing wages vs compititors/industry average?

I have a chapter in the book about "trading up the chain" and I talk about a campaign I helped someone do that ended up on the front page of Reddit. But it's more about creating content that will PLAY on Reddit rather than manipulating it overtly.

And at the end of the day that's what I do for my clients. I help them create narratives designed to spread and play online rather than jam it down anyone's throats. Yes, sometimes I have to place it myself on a few blogs but usually, if I've prepared correctly, it travels under its own power from there.

Man there are a shitload of new accounts here with barely any comment history asking the media manipulator questions. Your account is basically the only one that has an extensive history here at the top. Hmmm...the media manipulator manipulating the media???

*and then my upvote/downvote totals as revealed in RES are massively higher than the previous comments in this thread - which you almost never see on Reddit. Protip Ryan: next time don't be so obvious.

The whole concept of influencing and manipulating people wholescale has always seemed an alien concept to me, not something I'm comfortable with, and seems (to me) require a rather cynical, possibly unhealthy and unpleasant view of the world, of populations as commodities rather than people. I don't just mean marketing, but Politics, PR... all the related industries. It's always seemed to me, to succeed, or even get by, in the industry, people must need almost a sociopathic outlook, or a huge ego..

How do you frame your job in way that lets you sleep at night. I don't mean this as a dig, not everyone in the industry can be like that, so how do you rationalise manipulating people on large scales for a living. Can you still relate to people one to one or does everyone start to look like a predictable automaton, or a member of the herd, after a while...

I frame it now like this: I don't like that shit either, I don't like that it's pretty much the only way to do business in online journalism, so I took a considerable risk to myself and my career by ripping the curtain back and showing people how it works.

Scary as hell. I tried to write about this recently for Uncollege but basically, dropping out is scary because nobody talks about it and no one really can prepare you for it. Leaving the 'traditional' path is inherently a solitary thing.

I decided to do it because I had two offers that were better than school and I couldn't justify deciding to sit in a classroom over taking advantage of those opportunities. Dropping out isn't for everyone but if you have a chance to do something better than school don't stay in it just because thats what your parents think.

Not at the moment but there are plenty of better people out there who do I'm sure.

I'm saying no btw because taking someone on for free work is an arrangement that when I (or anyone) takes on is obligated to make it worth the volunteers time. You're trading me a non renewable resource so I better have my shit together and give you training, access, support and all that in return. It isn't something I take lightly. Its something you owe to the person to get right

Obviously I am biased here but I'll say it anyway: Tucker is the most loyal, generous and thoughtful friend I have ever had. I've learned a ton from him about marketing and writing but believe it or not, the best lessons I've gotten from him are about life. How to be a man, how to follow your passions, how to stand up for what you believe in, how to treat people. I'm sure people will laugh at me but it's true.

He and I are very different people and live very different lifestyles. But it's always been that way and I try to be as open minded and accepting of his choices as he is of mine (which is to say: unconditionally)

you learned how to be a man and how to treat people from Tucker Max? either his stories and character are vastly, enormously different from how he is in real life, or he taught you how to be a misogynistic, mean-spirited, arrogant prick. I hope it's the former.

As another former lurker on his old message board, I'm still pissed off he abruptly ended the message board and prohibited anyone else from accessing the content on there. I think he said at the time he was going to use it for future projects.

The equivalent would be the admins deciding to end reddit and use the content for book deals.

This question may sound weird, and I mean it with all due respect, but there seems to be a new wave of authors (Tim Ferriss, Neil Strauss, Tucker Max, and now yourself) who are incredibly intelligent and philosophical, and use that intelligence to manipulate the system to their benefit. Do you think think that way of thinking is in any way immoral or detrimental in the long term?

I disagree. I think the world needs more writers like these guys who are like you said intelligent and philosophical but more importantly they understand the system and are using that knowledge to spread awareness and inform the masses of the invisible strings that are pulling their every decision. We need more men like these who are not afraid of speaking their minds or worry about appeasing everybody. I think these men are the signs and of a new generation of adults. OUR generation. These authors are leading the way by bringing awareness of a system that thrive by manipulating the masses to their benefits. Change can only be brought about with awareness and then action. And it is the responsibility of this generation to change the system.

I know you worked in the music industry for a while.What advice can you offer up and coming musicians, ie. should they just try to build their empire by themselves? or should they still look for outside help? any ideas? I am sure that what you do now, isn't all that different from the music biz.
thanks

“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work–as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for–the things which I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?’

–But it’s nicer here…

So you were born to feel “nice?” Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?

–But we have to sleep sometime…

Agreed. But nature set a limit on that–as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash and eat.”

Hollywood is the WORST. First off the entire system is predicated on the notion that since everyone "needs" an assistant, and as a result being an assistant is the first job that everyone gets in Hollywood and where they supposedly receive on the job training (first you start as an asst to someone unimportant, then you get promoted to someone more important again and again until you finally get to represent your own clients). Except that makes absolutely no sense. Very few people need a full time person to sit at a desk and answer their phone calls all day in 2012. Unless you're Steven Spielberg you're just not busy enough to justify it--but because it's a status symbol everyone wants one. AND people who make good assistants and can stand sitting there being a robot all day are precisely the opposite type of person you'd ever want managing or advising the career of an artist. Basically the Hollywood agency model systematically selects administrative, risk-averse, bureaucrats with low self-esteem. If you ever wondered why the "suits" in Hollywood are so dumb, this process is pretty much why.

Fortunately I got really lucky and had mentors who let me skip all that stuff. I probably would have killed myself or quit otherwise.

AND people who make good assistants and can stand sitting there being a robot all day are precisely the opposite type of person you'd ever want managing or advising the career of an artist.

As a former Hollywood assistant with friends who are still "paying their dues", I can vouch that this is incredibly accurate. It has always bewildered me that the industry norm is to take ambitious, hard-working, and intelligent young graduates and stuff them behind a desk for 2+ years doing work a monkey could do (especially in light of the fact that most assistants have already spent untold time as unpaid interns).

Youth is a commodity in Hollywood, and we waste half of it sitting on mute getting what is supposedly "invaluable" experience - when there are plenty of people (such as yourself) to prove that this is in no way a necessary step.

Some of my favs:
Mediations by Marcus Aurelius
Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
Philosophy as a Way of Life by Pierre Hadot (his other books get more academic but all are amazing)
Maxims by Publius Syrus
Fragments by Heraclitus
On the Good Life by Cicero (collected by Penguin, I think)

I have to qualify my recommendations though. I don't read philosophy as an academic pursuit, I just read books that make my life better or make me think about these things. Other redditors who are philosophy majors could probably tear me apart for them. All I can say is that these worked for me.

I spent more than a year researching the book before I sat down to write. When I knew I was ready, I packed up all my shit, moved to New Orleans and got to work. The manuscript was done in 3 months.

Usually non-fiction is sold as a book proposal first, but I deliberately didn't go that route because 1) I didn't necessarily need the money 2) the idea wasn't crystalized in my head yet (how people can describe a book they haven't written yet is beyond me) and 3) I knew it would be controversial and I wanted the leverage of having a finished product with the publisher so they couldn't change it or tone it down as much.

Researching is partly what I do for a living, so I love that. Writing was HELL. Editing was tough. The marketing was the easiest part and I designed a lot of the book to be conducive to the campaign I would build around it (as opposed to what most people do which is think about marketing two weeks before it's release).

Next time: I would envision the entire book in my head before I write it or sell it. This time I only did it with the manuscript. Next time I will have everything planned from the layout to the cover to the blurbs. As Robert Greene says, plan all the way to the end. (so you know the mark you're aiming for, what you've got to do to get it and how to know that you've made it)

Did you have anything to do the Larry King AMA yesterday? The reason I ask is, it was uncommonly perfect as an AMA. One, he seemed to have the familiar conversational flow of comment threads down pat (including humor, LOLspeak), he actually responded to other responses (which most AMA newbs ignore, only responding to "new" questions), he stuck around for what seemed like hours, eas exceptionally friendly, etc.

All in all, I concluded that he had an experienced redditor and publicist in the room with him, typing his responses in carefully crafted verbiage, because you publicists learned a lot from the mess that was The Woody Harrelson/Rampart debacle.

I don't have any actually. Im not a particularly fast reader, I just do it A LOT. I'm not the fastest runner either but I know everyday when I wake up less there is an emergency I am going to squeeze it in

I tried to write about this in my post on Tim Ferriss' site. You don't have to use the tactics to court controversy. But you do have to know that you're COMPETING against controversy at all times. You better make sure that what your pitching is more interesting, easier to write about and better for the reporter than any of the alternative things they could post about.

That's a really good way to put it. I work in PR, mostly with government clients, and have to continuously remind them their products aren't nearly as sexy, newsworthy, or interesting as the rest of the things clamoring for the attention of the public (like when they want a press release for an updated website).

I had to leave LA because that's where all my day to day work was so it would have been impossible to focus. I didn't want to move to NYC for the same reason and I grew up in Northern California. With LA, SF and NYC off the table, you're pretty much just picking random cool cities and New Orleans was the one I went with.

The history and laid back culture definitely helped the writing process though.

I didn't feel that the book would be taken seriously if it was self-published. I wanted the people I criticized in this book to be unable to ignore my criticism and to have to acknowledge it and respond and/or change.

Self published books make more money but they rarely get mainstream press, they have trouble getting shelfspace and they look less professional. BUT you can make a lot more money and have more creative control.

It was a trade off I thought a lot about--especially since I do this professionally--but ultimately decided to go the traditional route with my first book. The credibility (and seeing inside the system) was way more valuable than any short term gains or ease of process would have been.

What's your end goal? Let's say the people you're criticizing have a come-to-Jesus moment and decide to change their ways. Then what? You've made a living exploiting them, right? Haven't you put yourself out of a job?

I dunno bud. Sounds to me like you're trying to create a niche for yourself and set yourself up as an expert. Maybe create your own firm and use the book for credibility. If so, I heartily approve.

Then again, there's no good reason for you to answer these questions. I'm just curious as hell.

Lastly, I understand the desire for outside validation. My first two books went through a traditional publisher -- I just didn't make any money. I can't see ever going back.

The people who are saying I'm out of a job only say that because they can't conceive of someone being good at more than one thing. Marketing is/was PART of what I do. It's something I was very interested in and passionate about but as I figured out how it worked I decided that the system was dysfunctional and dangerous. I was in a position to expose it so I did.

The last thing I want to do is become some media guru. I don't particularly like speaking in front of crowds, I only like working for clients I select and the things I like writing about are rarely marketing anyway.

I understand why some people would doubt my motives--but then again why are they being so critical of someone who is exposing the obvious problems with their industry? What have they ever done about the things we all know go on behind the curtain? The proof is in my actions: I exposed more than pretty any insider ever has about the media and I was very honest about my own role in it. If I was trying to help myself, I probably would have gone a different route.

Fiction is a lot different, especially literary fiction where the market is so much about signaling fanciness and how smart you or the readers are. I would take a good book that deserves attention but is wrongly being snubbed by these gatekeepers and figure out how to fake the signals until the book began to generate real recognition and WOM

Many of us in the media relations industry believe that strong, positive relationships with the press are vital. That the best way to get coverage for our issues/clients/company is to have reporters who trust us.

You're... erhm... kind of blown that out of the water with the HARO incident and your professional manipulations. Do you think that a) your tactics only work on a certain type of client/media market or b) that having a good relationship with reporters is overrated?

As a "media manipulator" myself, I have a hard time buying some of the advice here. Any flavor of media relations you work in centers on the PR persons ability to convince journalists to write about their client in a positive light. This aspect of the job, and the ability to do it well, is partially based on the relationships between PR people and journalists. More and more these days though, the story you are offering is much more important then any connection. When I'm pitching a solid, unique story with a good angle I have no issue getting in touch with a journo at a tier one publication that I've never been in touch with before, and get them to write a piece. The days of some publicist chomping on a cigar behind a desk and calling up reporters to "feed them a line" from their clients are long gone (if they ever actually existed outside of the movies at all).

There is a major exception to the rule. If you make a habit of lying to reporters, they won't be picking up your stories for long. There is certainly a symbiotic quid pro quo relationship between hacks and flacks, but there are very, very few professional journalists that are going to allow a PR person to completely use and manipulate them for their own ends,, especially if fudging the truth is involved. I won't say that it never happens, but it is exceedingly rare. Journalists have to answer to editors, and the reading public, so if they just write a bunch of PR shill stories they won't have a job for too long.

That's bogus. Media relations is fundamentally about using the media the promote your clients or products. Be serious. You're not relating to the media out of civic duty. Nor are they relating to you because you have access to the truth.

Journalists use PR people to get access to newsworthy clients and stories (that benefit them). PR people use journalists to get access to the public via the press.

That's the fucking business and any other way of putting it is just rationalization. I wanted to expose this in the book because we are telling ourselves a lie and that's stupid. The public has bought the rhetoric hook line and sinker and I hope my book changes that.

Excellent point. Issue advocacy, for example, typically reaches a small community of journalists for years. Gotta love these guys, reach out to them, give them good stories. The "promotion at all costs" model doesn't work beyond the single blitz (in my experience).

I agree. Issue advocacy, in particular, relies upon getting the influencers on your side, a majority of which would be media (at least in the US market). In this case, Mr. Holiday is presenting "media relations" as little more than publicity; hitting the phones/blogs and going with your gut as you hype conflict to wrangle headlines. While it can be considered a facet, its certainly not the whole picture, and these tactics won't work for most of your standard business communications campaigns.

Attach yourself to smart people who care about you and are willing to teach you and answer your questions. Get everything you can from it and pay them back to the best of your ability by making something of it.

How important is quality content for making something go viral? In the case of Tucker Max's movie it wasn't able to pop in the box office despite the press it received (although you do point out his book sales jumped as a result of the buzz you created).

Why that movie didn't do well is a long boring story but it mostly comes down to distribution. Haters point out how little it made at the Box Office but they deliberately obscure that it was only on a few hundred screens because the release was fucked up. My marketing campaigns are supposed to happen in conjunction with traditional PR and that didn't happen with the movie. The result was that it got a lot of buzz and buzz isn't enough by itself to put asses in seats.

I'm not trying to explain away my failures because I didn't do everything right either. I'm just saying that as a marketer some things are out of your control and it doesn't matter how much you personally deliver certain factors can't be overcome.

In your book and throughout interviews I've seen, you describe feeding blogs these sort of shock-value elements that they quickly bite on because they're page-view gold. How does one go about creating those shock-value blips for a product (say, a fiction novel I'm self-publishing) that isn't innately shocking or out of the ordinary?

Leave. Very few people in the industry have any idea what they are talking about, they pretend to have power and influence they don't, and will suck the life out of you with shitty menial tasks that no longer serve a purpose.

Do your own thing, work for clients you actually like and you'll not only be happier but you may make more money.

Don't quit. I generally agree with the statement that a huge number of people in the PR industry are clueless. This is especially true of many of the execs and high level people who've been around since the Nixon administration, and haven't been able to make the leap across the digital divide.

Maybe more than any other industry, the web and social media turned PR completely upside down. Everything about the industry changed, so many people who made their bones pre web, have no skills in those areas, which completely dominate the industry now.

After saying that, there are still a large number of incredibly smart, sharp people that you can learn a lot from. It's notoriously hard to break into PR and get that first job. Don't quit. Hang onto it and learn what you can. Especially at a boutique firm, which tend to be smaller and more hands, the opportunities to suck a bunch of useful skills isn't something to throw away lightly.

They may sound boring, but learning how to respond to and write up and RFP, do projections, budgets and client billing, put together clips and build an analytic report aren't glamorous but are useful, necessary and valuable skills to have.

While it's fun to paint PR as some kind of behind-the-scenes "Our Man In Havana" manipulation thing topped of by an evening of sipping Dom Perignon off a nubile starlet it just isn't realistic.

If you wan to go solo and build your own client base (which I also recommend at some point) you need specific skills, a clip book, connections and experience. You get those by working a grunt PR gig.

Hi Ryan. Thanks for the AMA, this is an interesting new subject for me. You seem to be an outspoken idealist. What are your other passions, do you think you will move to another field or career, have you found your life's calling? Any upcoming pursuits to look out for?

How would you have represented (or what advice can you offer to) any of the companies (or the firearms industry) in wake of the recent Aurora, CO event? Handling the media is one issue those guys seem to fail at every time..

Buying your book right now, thanks in advance for participating.
Edit: Purchased!

Can you tell me more about Dov Charney? When I first heard of his antics, I thought he was great, like HBO's Real Sex and Boogie Nights had a furry baby come to life. Then he started getting a bad rep as a pretty weird fella. What part of all that is PR hype? what's Real? is he an absolute nightmare or a misunderstood libertine?

The man created a $600M dollar Made in USA, sweatshop free garment company from nothing that employs 12,000 people in 20 countries. That his 'antics' have been talked about more than the facts I just mentioned, to me, illustrate all that is wrong with online journalism (because that's who broke and drives those stories...most of which are utterly baseless, btw)

I'm interested in advertising as a career path but recently PR has caught my eye. However, I'm still not quite sure what the job entails on a day to day basis, so I was wondering if you'd educate me on the matter

As a college dropout, how relevant do you think grades and GPA are to success? Success could be defined as financial success or just general happiness. Do you think there is a correlation between intelligence and GPA?

Besides the speeding tickets situation, in which other situations have you used your insights and skills to solve or promote something because you saw something of value in doing it (that wasn't work related)?

Also, now that you've written your book, what are you planning to work on now?

Congratulations on your sucess, it's been an inspiration too see you grow and achieve your goals.

In the book, I talk about a friends charity I promoted that eventually landed on the front page of Reddit and funded his Kickstarter. My general policy is that I'll give advice to anyone for free, if you want me to execute, you have to pay. So I usually work with non profit, small biz stuff that way

I've always felt that writing books is inherently narcissistic. You said somewhere in this thread where this might be one of the best moments of your career (paraphrased) depending on the NYT list coming out, and i don't want you to misunderstand me, i'm sure it took a lot of time and like anything that we might "give birth" to, we want to be proud of, i think the whole "i might help people" thing is an aside from how it makes individuals feel. Like page views where you have something quantifiable "i have x page views, my blog is doing well" it becomes "i've published a book that sold x amount or was x on the NYT list". Along the same lines, it seems to me what "your type" of person (granted, i really don't know you, tucker max and have never heard either of you but i feel at least somewhat acquainted with you from reading the responses) does best is not only attempt to manipulate outside opinions on some product but your own opinions about yourself to yourself and also the world. There's something a little smug about your responses and have put yourself on some pedestal to be able to talk to us about success and what it means to be successful. What have you done for humanity though? I think advertising is inherently narcissistic and it mostly refers to your own ability to impose your will on others and impose false images and ideas on some product. In fact, it probably makes you the bad guy but few would renounce that kind of "power". I'm sure you're a nice guy and none of this is meant personally, like i've said I don't know you as an individual and all of this is conjecture based on your responses but also your job. Thoughts?